LOUISA COUNTY, IOWA

Sarah Wasson was born September 9, 1813, in Pennsylvania (probably Huntingdon County), one of twelve children of Robert Wasson and Elizabeth Shaver. Robert Wasson served in the War of 1812. He was a private in Captain Isaac Vandevanter's company, 2nd Regiment of Pennsylvania Riflemen.

When a small child Sarah went with her family to the Ohio Territory where they settled in Richland County (now Ashland Co). There at age seventeen she married John Roberts Mickey. She bore her first and only daughter Mary in Ohio, her first son in Illinois, and seven more sons with her husband John in Iowa. Sarah's parents and siblings also came to Iowa, perhaps before, at the same time, or shortly after, settling in Pleasant Grove, Des Moines County where they remained. After two years Sarah and John moved a few miles west from Des Moines County to Morning Sun in Louisa County, Iowa.

The sudden death of her husband John in 1849 from typhoid fever left the thirty-six year old Sarah the care of the farm and nine children ages one to sixteen. Seven of the children had fallen ill with the fever but survived. Besides the rigors of frontier farm life, they had doctor bills to pay. Her son John wrote in his memoirs, "No one knows the hardships we went through. We had a few sheep and Mother would spin wool and make clothes for us in winter." That brief statement encompasses hours of labor -shearing the sheep, washing the wool, dyeing, carding, spinning, weaving, cutting and finally sewing the clothing.

In 1851 Sarah married David T. Blake, a widower with two more young boys for her to raise. Within three months her daughter married leaving Sarah as the only female in a household of males. Sarah bore two more sons with David--a total of twelve sons to raise.

In 1862 Sarah and David and several of the younger sons moved to Nevada near Fort Churchhill on the West Walker River. They built an irrigation dam and ditch, which bears their name. Within five years they returned to the farm in Iowa and by the 1870 census Sarah and David have only their two youngest sons still living in their household in Morning Sun twp. But David had itchy feet and by the 1880 census the family has moved again and are living in Gale twp, Marion County, Kansas. In 1885 Nehemiah Blake, the stepson Sarah had helped raise, brought his wife and three small sons to Kansas to take up a farm near his father and stepmother. But Nehemiah died shortly after his arrival and Sarah's youngest son by John R. Mickey, James Dewain Mickey, married Nehemiah's widow. Because Nehemiah's sons did not get along with their new stepfather, Sarah and David often had the boys stay with them--adding three more boys to the total Sarah helped raise.

Where Sarah spent the last days of her life is not known, because her death records have not been found. Sarah died January 18, 1898, and is buried in the Millersburg Cemetery near Pleasant Grove, Des Moines Co, Iowa next to her father and mother, sister Matilda and brother Hiram. Her husband David Blake died in 1900 in Durham County, Kansas, and is buried there.